When your church is a former Ponderosa restaurant, you learn to deal with the questions.
Before Carry the Word Worship Center moved into a vacant eatery in Ft. Wayne last November, church members would look up from cleaning the building to find passersby asking what restaurant would open there next.
Then there is the ribbing.
“Someone even asked the question, `Well, if I come to your church, can I get a steak?”‘ the Rev. Melvin Billingsley said. “I said, `Yes — a stake in the Lord.”‘
Without the backing of a church denomination or association, new independent churches like Carry the Word must keep costs low.
So many fledgling congregations seek out storefronts, theaters or other nontraditional locations as the nests in which to nurture future growth.
Historically, growing religious groups have turned to nontraditional settings as a way to launch new congregations with minimal expense, says Roger Finke, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.
In the early days of Christianity, for example, small groups of believers met for worship in members’ homes because they no longer were welcome in Jewish synagogues.
In the 1960s and 1970s, explosive growth led many new or independent Protestant churches to rent cheap storefront locations, says the Rev. Vernon Graham, executive pastor of Associated Churches of Ft. Wayne and Allen County.
Many of those churches sprang from the Jesus Movement, a spiritual awakening that swept the country along with the counterculture movement. Now, congregations seeking affordable retail or business locations tend to be independent or evangelical Protestant churches, Finke says.
Those churches typically worry less about finding a traditional church setting, Finke adds, because “they are not as big on traditional liturgy.”
Carry the Word Worship Center began in a small space leased at an old retail and office complex.
“We knew we couldn’t afford to rent a freestanding building, nor were we in a position to buy a building,” said Billingsley, who is co-pastor of the church with his wife, Mary.
The new ministry can’t even pay its pastors yet. Melvin Billingsley also works as director of discipleship at the Ft. Wayne Rescue Mission, and Mary is a driver’s examiner for a local Bureau of Motor Vehicles branch.
Carry the Word bought the former Ponderosa about a year ago. It had stood vacant for three years.
The Billingsleys believe the building’s location and access are ideal for building a multicultural church. But the 5,000-square-foot structure required a lot of work.
Electrical wires once attached to light fixtures and the salad bar dangled from the ceiling. Old kitchen equipment had to be discarded. The building needed a thorough cleaning.
The Billingsleys and church members worked on Saturdays for about six months to get it ready for use.
Volunteers from Huntertown United Methodist Church–Melvin went to high school with a member there–helped with the heavier remodeling work.
The building still looks like a restaurant from the outside, but that doesn’t stop people from attending.
“It doesn’t matter where you worship,” said Sylvia Glymph, who started coming to Carry the Word recently with her husband, Michael; son, Kyle, 14; and daughter, Kelly, 7. “It lets people know the church is a body of believers, and it doesn’t have to be under a steeple.”
On a recent Sunday morning, 11 adults and four children called out hallelujahs and prayers of praise as they stood around the altar to start the weekly 11 a.m. worship service.
Upbeat, contemporary Christian music streamed from a tape player near the front hallway.
The Billingsleys cranked up the tape player’s volume during about 20 minutes of praise time. Men, women and children stand, clap and sway with the beat of pop-rock worship songs. The tape gradually downshifts to slower praise ballads before Melvin steps to the pulpit to deliver the day’s sermon.
“There are two very important things you need to know today,” he begins. “God loves you, and he has a purpose for your life.”
Another 11 adults and children drift in by the time the service ends around 1 p.m.
“We all knew Melvin,” said Yolanda Singleton, who began attending Carry the Word several months ago along with two sisters and their families.
She said they had been looking for a church where pastors preach accurately from the Bible. The Billingsleys and the congregation go out of their way to make newcomers feel welcome.
“That’s what you need if you have been searching,” Singleton said.
Daniel Ekanem started attending Sunday worship about the same time after meeting and praying with Melvin Billingsley.
“When I come to church, I feel the zeal of the (Holy) Spirit every time,” Ekanem said. The Billingsleys hope their ministry will grow into a full-time calling. They also hope to see 350 to 400 people filling the former dining room reborn as church sanctuary.
But Melvin said they plan to keep the emphasis on teaching Scripture and reaching out to people living in that area.
“We are not interested so much in building big numbers,” he said. “We are interested in building strong Christians.”
